The Results

I got a new personal best, but still had a lot of room for improvement.

First the highlights: 1 hour 14 minutes 49 seconds for a half marathon (even if it is slightly downhill) is pretty good. 8th place overall is not as good but more on that later.

Here are the rest of the details:  I had eaten a good meal of carbs and protein the night before. On the day of the race, I woke up at 4:30 AM for a 7 AM start time. I usually like 3 hours to prepare but that is just too early. I had some water when I woke up and made sure my blood sugar was in range (it was 107 I think). I got my stuff together and got in the van and had about a half of a granola bar for 15 carbs. I had more water at 5:30.  I always stop drinking an hour and a half before the race. I turned off my insulin pump at 6:30 so there wouldn't be too much insulin in me during the run. My blood sugar was up around 140 by then but that was ok because I wanted it to be higher rather than lower for my first attempt at a long race. With 15 minutes to go I at a Gu Energy Gel for 20 fast acting carbs.

I warmed up a bit and the gun went off. Normally I warm up quite a bit but I figured I could use the first mile or so to get warm. I had secured a spot right on the starting line like I usually do and I went out with the leaders. 3 guys started pulling away almost immediately. I figured I would just hold back for a minute and see what develops. Those 3 guys kept pulling further and further away and by the mile mark they were 10 seconds ahead. I figured I probably couldn't keep up with them so I stayed in the pack right behind them. We hit the first mile at 5:35 and held that pace very steady for the next 3. Again, those 3 guys were pulling further and further away and so was one other guy who decided to try to chase them down. So I started to resign myself to just going for top 10 or something now that it looked like the podium was out of reach. That was my first mistake.

As the miles clicked by, I told myself to just keep going at the current pace and see how long you can hold it. I knew that after 4 or 5 miles people would start falling off the pace. Sure enough that started happening and by mile 7 there were just 5 or 6 of us running together with those 3 guys way ahead and on guy trying to bridge that gap.

At the first water station, I did not take a drink and a few of the other guys did. This caused them to slow down a bit and I got a small lead. The problem was that I didn't have the guts to take that lead and try to run away. Later in the race I realized my training was lacking a certain element. I didn't know how to drink on the run. I never practice it and since I never do races longer than 5 or 6 miles, I don't ever need to drink anything during the race. This time, I had already planned on drinking Gatorade at a couple spots to keep my blood sugar up but when I tried to take a drink, it was very difficult. I will have to practice that in the future.

Fortunately I didn't need it that bad, the Gu I had before the race had made my blood sugar rise to about 190 by mile 3. I turned my pump back on at that point because I was worried that I might have too little insulin in me to process those carbs. After a few more miles my blood sugar was coming back down and I turned the pump off again. I finished in the low 100s so the diabetic aspect of the race worked out just fine.

Each of these little things that I did like messing with my pump and trying to drink while running slowed me down a bit but that didn't cost me the race. The real problem was that I wasn't confident enough in my own ability to know how hard I could push it. Because of this I didn't have the guts to really push it to the limit. In my mind I settled for a top 10 finish and so that's all I got. It turns out that after all those miles, only 2 of those top guys could hold that pace and I could have had 3rd place by just running 84 seconds faster.


Note for next time: If you are going to put in all that effort to train for a race, make it count on race day and don't let anything stop you from giving it all you've got.

But for now, I'm going to go have a milk shake and enjoy a couple weeks of easy runs to let my legs heal up for next season.

Hope to see you out there.